Coming to Pomona College, first-years did not know that majoring in cognitive science would require winning a lottery.
This academic year, Pomona’s Linguistics and Cognitive Science Department started limiting the number of students who can major in cognitive science. First years taking Intro to Cognitive Science must enter a lottery in order to have the opportunity to declare the major. To ensure the process is equitable, the lottery is randomized.
Interest in the once small major has tripled over the last ten years, while faculty size has stagnated. The cognitive science major had one tenure-track faculty member in 2017; since 2019, there have been two. According to data obtained via email from Lise Abrams, chair of Linguistics and Cognitive Science (LGCS) and coordinator of cognitive science section, there were seven senior majors in 2017; in 2027, there will be an estimated 23 senior majors, with an estimated 82 majors total.
“[Limiting majors] was a really challenging decision,” said Abrams, “[but] the demands [the high student to faculty ratio] is placing on class enrollments, advising, thesis supervision, research opportunities — tenure track faculty can’t [meet] all that.”
The department has been aware of increasing student demand, and has tried to get approval for additional tenure track faculty. According to Abrams, in the spring of 2025, external reviewers of the LGCS department recommended to Pomona administration that the cognitive science section add at least two faculty. But for the past two years, all requests for additional faculty positions that the department has submitted to the Faculty Position Advisory Committee have been denied by the administration. This year, the first year of the lottery, the department has requested three additional faculty. The request is pending.
First years taking Intro to Cognitive Science only learned about the lottery after the course began.
“It was definitely disappointing to hear … and surprising as well. [The lottery] is counter to what the school is emphasizing,” said Serena Ren PO ’29, a student who entered the lottery and was ultimately able to declare the major. “I felt so lucky … but everyone should just be able to get the major that they want.”
Hannah Kooiman PO ’29 added, “I love the LGCS department, it’s such a special and unique community … It would be cool to foster that instead of having this tension in the student body.”
Kooiman chose to attend Pomona not only for its LGCS department, but also because she expected that she would have until sophomore year to declare a major. “I was happy [when I was chosen for the lottery], but it also made me feel a little trapped.”
Professor Abrams, who is herself an alum of Pomona, noted the difference in the experience she had with what current students have.
“I got my education here because I could pursue whatever I wanted to pursue,” Abrams said. “Now there’s students who don’t get that choice.”
Several students were not selected in the lottery.
“Depriving you of being able to take a path [is] the opposite of what college is supposed to be,” said Chrysan Nolledo PO ’29, who was waitlisted. “[The lottery] has been a source of agony. I’ve been encouraged to consider other paths, but I feel that [cognitive science] is definitely what I want to pursue.”
Students taking Intro to Cognitive Science this spring semester still have the chance to enter the lottery, including Sebastian Garcia Gutierrez PO ’29. As one of many students planning on entering the lottery, Garcia Gutierrez expressed concern that first-year students who were not familiar with cognitive science before coming to Pomona are at a disadvantage.
“[Before] my friend who took [Intro to Cognitive Science] last semester recommended it, I didn’t know what cogsci was,” Garcia Gutierrez said. “[Now it’s] my favorite class so far at my time at Pomona.”
All four students interviewed believed that student interest in the major would only grow, especially as cognitive science can be used to explore questions about AI.
“I don’t see student interest in cognitive science as a transient interest,” Abrams corroborated.
The situation is even more complicated when considering off-campus majors. “It’s sort of a nightmare,” Abrams said.
Pomona and Pitzer College are the only members of the consortium with a cognitive science major. While Pitzer’s major is not open to any non-Pitzer students, Pomona’s lottery is also open to students from Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College or Harvey Mudd College who take Pitzer’s Intro to Cognitive Science course. However, Abrams says that Pomona students will be prioritized.
Abrams is also concerned about the long-term effects of having a lottery. Even if the department’s requests for additional faculty are approved soon, the hiring process and bringing students back to the major takes time. Cognitive science is not the first Pomona department forced to limit majors; the Computer Science Department ran a lottery starting spring 2024, which ended in fall 2025, when two new faculty were hired. According to Professor Tzu-Yi Chen, chair of the Computer Science Department, the three semester major lottery was in part because there were approved faculty positions that took more than one year of searching to fill.
Abrams hopes to have the three faculty she requested approved simultaneously. The expertise and synergy which each new faculty brings would lead her to “fundamentally change” the cognitive science curriculum. As of now, without additional faculty, there are limitations to both what students can study and what faculty can support.
Information on the major lottery is not yet on the cognitive science major page of Pomona’s website, meaning most prospective students are unaware. Ren, one of the students who won the lottery, was first introduced to the major by a cognitive science student she met when visiting campus during a fly-in program. Now a tour guide, Ren was recently asked by a prospective student if it was difficult getting into a major at Pomona.
“I had to emphasize, usually no, but just for one major — which is my major,” Ren said.
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